Not sure if the locals will appreciate me being there with a Gooner shirt on and a very large number 4 but I will have my lapels present and correct. It's pouring with rain here, took 5 and a bit hours to get to Birmingham from Tavistock. ( usual time about 2 hours less) due to the end of half term holiday traffic returning home and two accidents on the M5!! Hope Elvis voice is PK it seemed just a bit creaky on the One Show, I thought . Looking forward to seeing Mr & Mrs E and MOOT and anyone else I know !

sulky lad wrote:Not sure if the locals will appreciate me being there with a Gooner shirt on and a very large number 4 but I will have my lapels present and correct. It's pouring with rain here, took 5 and a bit hours to get to Birmingham from Tavistock. ( usual time about 2 hours less) due to the end of half term holiday traffic returning home and two accidents on the M5!! Hope Elvis voice is PK it seemed just a bit creaky on the One Show, I thought . Looking forward to seeing Mr & Mrs E and MOOT and anyone else I know !

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excellent sulky...enjoy every minute. those tickets will be a phenomenal addition to my collection.

p.s. i often find him vocally rusty after a bit of a lay-off, he'll be fine

Rather a good night,I must say ! A stunning I Want You and Blackberry Way as a homage to local lad Roy Wood on piano. Voice was the best I've heard for a while and no doubt MOOT will publish the complete set list shortly. The printed set list had a few songs as always that he didn't play but it was a really good performance except tact even on the very front row, I had one drunk woman singing really badly along to Side By Side and another fell over drunk. I panicked as my mike leads was draped across my chest and a security guy was three seats to my left so I turned my back and sat at 45 degrees in my seat . Looks like I've records it ok, AND picked up some spare tickets just for BA !!Ps I must have missed that warning about recording equipment

Elvis takes care of this and that, as his Detour Tour stops off in Birmingham – and brings probably the longest encore in history with it

The Brand New Zeros are a four piece band from London, so new that their debut album isn’t out yet. How a group – or at least part of them, with only two appearing here as they are playing acoustic – so new bagged a slot with a British music legend rather is explained by the surname of one of them: McManus. Ronan, is the brother of the fella that he repeatedly calls “the man himself” throughout the set. Having a sibling that goes by the stage name Elvis Costello might open doors, but you have to have the talent to keep them from slamming shut. Brand New Zeros can score here as they deal – for the most part – in dark acoustic folky pop. “Bullet In The Heart” is a heartfelt tale of love gone wrong, “I Love You But You Don’t Exist” is rather explained by its title, as is “Save Your Sorry.” BNZ save their own best for last, never mind apologies. “Double Whiskey Single Woman” adds a swampy blues like feel to the melancholy, and is all the better for it. More in this vein might make that unreleased record an interesting proposition.

Between the two acts tonight the big screen which adorns the stage and made to look like a TV (the stage is done up to look like it’s a living room) is playing Elvis Costello videos. The man himself – to borrow his brothers phrase – runs onstage and says: “well, you’ve seen the hits now, you might as well go home…..”

What he means is this: This is the third time in the very recent past that Elvis Costello has been in this room. The previous two involved an enormous stage show, dancing girls, wheels of fortune and a spectacle. They were brilliant. This tour isn’t that. This is Elvis Costello on his own, just a man, his guitar and a phenomenal back catalogue.

His work is suited to this reworking. Costello is arguably the greatest singer/songwriter we have ever produced in this country, as well as a fine storyteller. This is his chance to combine the two, which he does admirably.

A very lengthy set begins with “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” and highlights in the first half include a heartbreaking “Shipbuilding” which is given a real wonderful haunting quality at the piano, “Watching The Detectives” which is turned into a psychedelic thing drenched in feedback and clever loops and a superb cover of “When I Write The Book” which appears to conclude things.

Not a bit of it. The main attraction is only just getting started. The myriad encores go on for nearly an hour.

He returns, with his brother, and with footage of their father playing on the screen behind, for “A Good Year For The Roses” and “Oliver’s Army” which still drips with emotion and bile after all these years.

The second encore – on his own this time – is really clever. Costello appears in the TV. Neatly tying up a story he’d told earlier about when his Dad appeared at The Royal Command Performance, for a trio which includes “Alison” and “Pump It Up.” The symbolism of Elvis being back on tele is surely laden with sarcasm and a hint to his days on Top Of The Pops.

Encore number three is different again. Costello is at the piano. A cover of Cliff Edwards’ “Side By Side” is followed by a complete reworking of “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down,” before he’s back with a guitar in hand and a poignant “Jimmie Standing In The Rain” with his grandfathers picture on screen behind him.

And it’s still not over. At least not until encore number four, of what – lyrically at least – has become his signature song “(What’s So Funny About) Peace Love And Understanding? This sees Ronan and Luke Dolan from Brand New Zeros on stage. It seems to sum up a warm show that is full of life and fun.

Playing acoustically must be one of the hardest things a musician can do. Laid bare, it sees you out on a limb and having to rely on yourself to pull things off. You need to be a special person to do it at all. To do it this well, you need to have some of the best songs of their type ever written and a career that many would kill for. Tonight, you needed to be Elvis Costello.

Well that was better. It seems Salisbury was the warm up show, and Elvis' voice is now near 100%. The setlist is on the wiki. The same shape as Salisbury but with some nice variations including "Mr Feathers" and "Blue Minute". Also a welcome solo version of "i Want You" with guitar looping.

I like to see Elvis sing duets, and he does harmonise well with Ronan. I spoke to Ronan afterwards. It will only be him and Luke Dolan supporting, not the full four piece band. He still likes to talk about the RAH show where the BiblecodeSundays joined EC and Russell Crowe on stage. Apparently he's been on The One Show with Russell Crowe more recently and Mr Crowe greeted Ronan like a lost cousin.

Things looking good for the tour, with the prospect too of some "local" variation such as "Blackberry Way" for local hero Roy Wood.

It was everything that the last Elvis show I saw, the Bluesfest one at the RAH last year, wasn't.

His voice is as good as I've heard it and no complaints about the set list.

I must have been sitting very near Sulky Lad as the drunk couple were right below me. I was in the end seat of the side 'terrace' which is slightly obscured by a handrail. I was asked to stop taking photos and a couple behind were removed for filming songs. I heard them complain about it very loudly to one of the stewards. They sounded local and she said she wouldn't be coming back again.

A few hung around afterwards and eventually were rewarded with a brief chat and photos with Elvis at about a quarter to midnight. There was only two of us left by the time he came out. I got some of my old vinyl singles signed that I recovered from the loft the other day which he was happy to do as always.

sulky lad wrote:Rather a good night,I must say ! A stunning I Want You and Blackberry Way as a homage to local lad Roy Wood on piano. Voice was the best I've heard for a while and no doubt MOOT will publish the complete set list shortly. The printed set list had a few songs as always that he didn't play but it was a really good performance except tact even on the very front row, I had one drunk woman singing really badly along to Side By Side and another fell over drunk. I panicked as my mike leads was draped across my chest and a security guy was three seats to my left so I turned my back and sat at 45 degrees in my seat . Looks like I've records it ok, AND picked up some spare tickets just for BA !!Ps I must have missed that warning about recording equipment

“You can go home now, you’ve seen all the hits” yelled The Beloved Entertainer as he strode to centre stage, the giant TV set behind him having played promos from his past while we awaited his arrival. (why don’t more bands put thought into entertaining the audience during these longueurs? – The White Stripes used to show old 50s cartoons). It’s a tricky balancing act he takes on these days – rewarding the trainspotters (Hello!) with rarely played nuggets while satisfying those there to hear ‘Oliver’s Army’ and She. Tonight he pulled it off superbly in a two hour set that spanned the years as he painted himself in the same vaudeville tradition as his father and grandfather.

He opens with two songs from the same vintage but years apart, ‘Red Shoes’ and ‘Blue Minute’ – both demoed for ‘My Aim Is True’ but the latter not seeing the light of day until the umpteenth reissue of his debut. There was a sparkiness and energy in his delivery of even familiar material. “Look out music lovers, I’m gonna play the piano’ he once yelled on a live B-side’ which was felt on last years jaunt where a shonky electric keyboard made songs like ‘Shipbuilding’ sound like musak to my ears. Fellow gig attendee @SteveT remarked that his other half must have been giving him a few pointers as his playing on that and ‘Shot With His Own Gun’ was fine although missing Steve Nieve’s effortless light and shade.

He paid tribute to local boys, The Move, with a verse and chorus – “it’s all I know” – of the mighty ‘Blackberry Way’ who I assume have a star on the Brum Walk Of Fame that runs past the venue. I spotted Jeff Lynne, Murray Walker, Noddy Holder & Tony Iommi among others. The dreaded ‘She’ reared it’s head during a section that Elvis performed on a rocking chair under a standard lamp. Shorn of its sticky strings and bombast, low key with softly picked strings it became Parisian café introspection with no vibrato but still as yearning.

His brother , Ronan Macmanus, whose Brand New Zeros had opened the night, joined for a strum through crowd-pleasers ‘Good Year For The Roses’ and ‘Oliver’s Army’ before Elvis appeared inside the big TV to ‘Pump It Up’. A slowed down piano take of ‘I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down’ bought it back to the original Sam & Dave version which was my personal highlight along with the guitar loop and feedback squall of ‘I Want You’. The fact there was room for ‘Peace Love & Understanding’ & the underrated ‘Mr Feathers’ from the criminally underrated ‘Momofuku’ in tonight’s set shows there was something for everyone.

The audience:

A woman behind me was constantly texting and occasionally chatting during the support slot which made me fear she was another reluctant attendee dragged along so the male fan didn’t have to go to a gig alone – the horror! However she, like everyone else, was so well behaved and enthusiastic, better class of audience all round in Birmingham I find.

It made me think..

That this fabulous venue seems to bring out something special in Mr Costello – whether it’s the audience, the ambiance or response but it makes the trip up the M40 worthwhile."